Mithy: “It’s going to be great playing against Aphromoo in a best of 5. I respect him a lot.”

TSM’s support, Mithy, explains why it was so hard to play C9 in the Semis with their 7 man roster. Going to Oakland for their match against 100 Thieves determines their gauntlet seeding, so we will definitely see a hungry team still fighting for their chance at a trip to Worlds.

How excited are you to be in Oakland and play in the Oracle arena?

It’s always a good experience playing in front of a big crowd, but it’s my first time playing in the third place match, so it feels kind of embarrassing. So I’m not super excited, but at the end of the day, looking at it positively… I’m playing in front of a big crowd. So we’ll all try our best and have fun.

How different was it playing against C9 when they subbed people in and changed things up. Did they feel like a different team, or did they just have more energy and focus? What happened at the end of that series?

They came up with a different strategy than what we had been preparing for and it worked very well against the style we were playing in the series. It was just really hard to deal with and we didn’t have enough time to adapt, we didn’t adapt well enough. They basically played the two champs twice in a row… So at the end, they just won in game 5. It’s good for them that they came in with two different strategies with different players. And the fact that they could win games with both strategies made it hard to be able to adapt in time to win the series.

Do you think you’d have had enough time to adapt even if it were just Svenskeren and Goldenglue the entire time – who beat you – since it was just one strategy.

Yeah, I think that… Usually teams come into the games with a way of playing and drafting. With one play style. Since they were swapping their mid/jungle, they’re playing two different play styles, and both sets of players are good. We had to adapt to the first style, which we did and went 2-1, but we didn’t to the second. They just 2-0ed us and won.

Let’s talk about the gauntlet, since that’s your last ticket into World’s. You potentially have to face Clutch, who you’ve beaten recently, but who has beaten you guys in the only best of 5. Then Echo Fox, who you did just take down. But then you’d have either 100T or Cloud9 depending on who wins Sunday. What do you feel like you need to work on to make it through the gauntlet?

I think as a team, we do not have a specific play style. I mean, we are specific in the fact that we are not very proactive and usually go for late game, and so on. But in terms of playing the early game, we are a bit all over the place and don’t know exactly what our style is. I think it’s shifting between metas and patches so, going into gauntlet, we will probably be playing a different style than before, so maybe that will catch teams off guard. And the fact that we should be fine to fall back into our other styles too, but it’s hard to say. I think we are just going to take each game one at a time and improve on a day to day basis. Usually when you play a best of 5, you can learn so much from the metas other teams are playing. What works on stage, what works in scrims, etc. If you take the games with a learning approach and are rational about it, you can always improve on a day to day basis.

So what do you feel about that series against 100 Thieves then this weekend?

It’s going to be exciting! I think it’s going to be great for me personally playing against Aphromoo in a best of 5, I think that’s going to be a fun experience and I respect him a lot. Other than that, I’m going to try and enjoy myself.

Catch the 3rd place match between 100 Thieves and TSM this Saturday, Sept. 8th at 2:00pm PST on the official LoL Esports page, Twitch, or YouTube. Also, catch the Final match between Team Liquid and Cloud9 on Sunday, Sept. 9th at 2:00pm PST.